to boast
of what it cost me to go, knowing that other people would be seeing
you--influencing you--perhaps setting you against me--all the time I was
away. But then when I came back, I couldn't understand you. You avoided
me. It was nothing but check after check--which you seemed to enjoy
inflicting. At last, on the night of our ball I seemed to see clear. On
that night, I did think--yes, I did think, that I was something to
you!--that you could not have been so sweet--so adorable--in the sight
of the whole world--unless you had meant that--in time it would all come
right. And so next day, on our ride, I took the tone I did. I was a
fool; of course. All men are, when they strike too soon. But if you had
had any real feeling in your heart for me--if you had cared one
ten-thousandth part for me, as I care for you, you couldn't have treated
me as you did last night--so outrageously--so cruelly!"

The strong man beside her was now trembling from head to foot.
Constance, hard-pressed, conscience-struck, utterly miserable, did not
know what to reply. Falloden went on impetuously:

"And now at least don't decide against me without thinking--without
considering what I have been saying. Of course the whole thing may blow
over. Radowitz may be all right in a fortnight. But if he is not--if
between us, we've done something sad and terrible, let's stand together,
for God's sake!--let's help each other. Neither of us meant it. Don't
let's make everything worse by separating and stabbing each other. I
shall hear what has happened by to-night. Let me come and bring you the
news. If there's no great harm done--why--you shall tell me what kind of
letter to write to Radowitz. I'm in your hands. But if it's bad--if
there's blood-poisoning and Radowitz loses his hand--that they say is
the worst that can happen--I of course shall feel like hanging
myself--everybody will, who was in the row. But next to him, to Radowitz
himself, whom should you pity more than--the man--who--was three parts
to blame--for injuring him?"

His hoarse voice dropped. They came simultaneously, involuntarily to a
standstill. Constance was shaken by alternate waves of feeling. Half of
what he said seemed to her insolent sophistry; but there was something
else which touched--which paralysed her. For the first time she knew
that this had been no mere game she had been playing with Douglas
Falloden. Just as Falloden in his careless selfishness might prove to
have br